Hong Kong ship like a jail for crew

CREW members of a huge cruise ship are effectively imprisoned on board after not being paid wages for six months.

Forty-six people are stuck aboard the New Imperial Star, which is anchored in a Hong Kong bay just a few hundred metres from the shore, as they wait for wages, fearing the possibility that they will not receive them if they disembark.

They are owed for at least five months of work since the cruise ship, which previously ran a casino, failed a maintenance inspection in October last year and anchored in Kowloon Bay.

Arising International Holdings, the registered ship owner, has been promising to pay wages, but so far it and the two other companies involved have failed to rescue the mix of international workers suffering in "dire" conditions. - INM